Bazaars are a traditional element in the lives of many people, particularly in countries of Arab background. The concept of bazaar is also strongly related to the souq, which is a market in an Arab city. A first glance at the bazaar shows a decidedly commercial nature and spatial organization, where similar activities tend to cluster: industrial workshops, eating areas, fabric tradesmen, all formed nuclei of activitiy, or actions, in which the visitor could orientate themselves even if they had never visited a particular bazaar before.

What makes a bazaar different than a shopping centre? Following Khansari and Yavari, there are at least 2 main differences:

1. In shopping centres, the manufacturing process is gone. It is just a place for trading. There is no connection to the process of making the finished items that are to be sold, and there is no chance of experiencing this process. From The Persian Bazaar: veiled space of desire, I extract:

“Bazaars were noisy; some, like the streets of metalworkers, were overwhelming with the sounds reverberating on walls and vaults, so noisy in fact that in recent times apprentices were moved into open spaces around bazaars for the loudest operations affecting metals. Noises do not appear in photographs, but dust does, and all bazaars were filled with particles of work, the sawdust of woodworkers or the threads of textiles, mixed with the dust of architecture and of endlessly shuffling feet. This dust is like a veil which covers the visitor or like the filter through which he reaches whatever he sought, the object of his desires. And to the dust must be added odors, the sweet smells of candies and pastries, the rich scents of endless perfumes, the rough smell of leather or of paint, the hard odors of working bodies making things or carrying them around.

Making things was not simply a technical activity now gone from shopping centers, it was a continuous sensory experience for the eyes, the nose, the ears, at times the taste buds and even touch. That experience could be exhilarating and attractive or repulsive and depressing. But, when compared to the aseptic quality of our shopping malls, it always was a profoundly human experience…”

Marrakech Souq

2. The other difference comes from architecture. As opposed to modern shopping centres made for easy digestion with shiny glass and polished floors (Rosengård Centrum?),

The architecture of the bazaar was an experience of discovery, it created a mystery in which both men and things played a strange role, only partly defined through their specific function of selling and making or of buying and waiting to be bought. By its skillful manipulation of light and of built surfaces, this architecture sought to attract and to fascinate. Together with the noises, the smells, and the visual festival of colorful items on display, it proclaimed the complexity of life and something of its illusory quality. Everything may be possible and available, but perhaps nothing is real.

In the bazaar, we can distinguish 3 elements:

– Action: it is the space, the bazaar presenting itself as a set of possibilities in the horizon.

– Reaction: it is what people do in the bazaar. It is worth mentioning that reactions to bazaars are highly personalized and temporary. Going to a bazaar can very well be a completely different experience if the visit takes place at a different time of the day or year. Again, it would appear that the action is merely to shop, but as anybody who has visited this kind of street markets know, there are a number of invisible actions too: smelling, seeing, thinking, navigating… and they all conform one single, yet multilayered architectural and sensorial landscape.

– Production: it is the experience of going to a bazaar. Among a myriad other things, “the souq was a place where people could come and talk, or sit down to tell stories.” It is not the same to walk across a bazaar when it is open and working, than when it is closed at night and it’s just a transit space. The production always has a psychological and emotional element, for it is an experience in itself. The lines of flight take a different meaning each time.

We all know that neighborhoods can be quite varied. From one block to the next, the urban landscape can change completely, and often nearby streets are regarded as being completely different from our own. We may know the guys across the street but have no idea who lives 100m down the road. Rosengård is a liminal community where immigrants are the majority, and it is known that there are about 50 different language groups distributed across the area. Thus, neighborhoods become microcosmos.

Exile on Amiralsgatan

From the nationality map, one can see that Rosengård acts as a haven for certain nationalities. Why do we stick around our own people, even in the furthest corners of the planet? One answer can be that it’s simple: in ethnic neighborhoods it’s easier to feel understood, to buy the same roots for your mother’s stew, to say hi in your own language, and why not, it may be simpler to get a job.

My experience as a foreigner in Norway tells me that while there are actually very few Costa Ricans in Bergen (and supposedly no more than 100 in the whole country), it is convenient to have my countrymen around. There are no Costa Rican corner shops, restaurants or churches, but it is good to smile and be understood.

At the same time, this is a self-imposed exile from your new country which very often earns little public support from local residents (notable exceptions include Little Italy and China Town). One might only wonder what role does the place you live in play in this situation, and if it can be a tool to break this wall.

Choosing a site

I chose 5 sites based on the density of use by local people: cars and trains come and go, but pedestrians often live here. Very few people walk through Rosengård casually. Therefore, these are the main urban spaces where I will work: located in different parts of the district, they aim to knit a web of urban life into its surroundings. After all, if the neighbors can have it, so can we.

The ghetto holds a great potential as an urban communicator: it is a place to share stories of arrival and departure, of new life and also of generational gaps. It is a place of hope and new beginnings, but it is a place of loneliness too. Rosengård is one such place: it is a character in itself, in the lives of the people who live and work in it. How do people interact with these character?

“… space becomes an ‘acting place’ rather than the place of action.”

Bal, 1997

As we can read in the news from time to time, this relationship between place and inhabitants can be quite tense and often mutually rejectful. It is hard to point down where the root of the problem may lie, but one can wonder: can giving this place a more humane face result in a change in direction, as to how the people of Rosengård treat their home? Many neighbourhoods have these “humane” elements, be it parks, gardens, corners, shops or cafeterias, these elements create points through which people can engage their life-contexts and relate. A reason to break the ice, so to say.

About 47% of the population of Örtagården in central Rosengård, is under 24. The landscape is charged with hilly paths (good for the legs!), small football goals, slides and swings. It seems like a good place to move, where your body will be put to work (watch out in the winter though). However, if one looks closer, it seems like a pretty cold place to be when you are neither a kid, nor an adult. If you are old but not SO old, and young but not SO young, there is nothing here for you. Has this topography forgotten the young?

This is an overview of my architectural programme intentions. The different “pixels” show some intentions in organization and distribution of functions in space. I believe in multi-functional spaces, so for example a skate park can also be used by in-line skaters, BMX riders, graffiti artists and others. The density of the pixels aims at providing a transitional space between in and out: to create a defined functions outside of the dwelling units. A deeper look into the consequences of these ideas is to come…

Social tension (already happening), increasing population (as projected by the analysis and the municipality), global warming, climate refugees and what not… The future of Rosengård appears to take a definite road. But how does community react to it?

The opposite of abandoning can be just as bad / lo opuesto del abandono puede ser igual de perjudicial.

Scenario 2: teaching an old dog new tricks

The science of small things / La ciencia de las pequeñas cosas.

EpilogueScenario 2: teaching an old dog new tricks seems less immediate. It involves a smaller political involvement and economic injection, and as a stage-plan, it will take more time to unravel and show its true outcome. However, as it is a joint effort between the commune (which acts as a facilitator of technical and economic means) and the community (who act as operators and users), it reinforces the sense of self-achievement. Only by giving the tools, and not the full solution, can real progress be made.

The goal: to identify the main issue I’m dealing with; to explore the architectural and spatial consequences of the project.

If you’ve been following this blog, you can already identify the main issue I’m dealing with. That is, the role of public space in a liminal community (Rosengård in this case, though as has been proposed on several occasions, the methodology could hold true for other similar cases). We worked in groups. Mine was called

City in a special challenging condition (liminal situation)

As a group, we set our minds on finding some common grounds. We are all working with projects on different countries and circumstances (Sweden -me-, Norway, Russia, Iceland and the United Arab Emirates), yet our projects have a few terms in common. What are these words and how do they apply specifically to my project?

SECLUSION – Namely, the feeling of not being inside a building in Rosengård. It is funny because intuition would say the opposite: seclusion is a drink best taken indoors, alone. But the management of scales in Rosengård is at times so unfriendly to the human scale, that open spaces here enhance seclusion: there is no transition between in and out a building (it is a binary system: you’re either completely inside or completely outside), so human life ends up dilluting in this sea of nothing.

VOID – Understood as both “emtpy” and “previously valid, currently invalid”, Rosengård is a kind of mental void in the map of Malmö: it is there, but few people know what it really is about. A space that was formerly thought of as futuristic and promising is now void and stagnated. In this sense, void is an authoritarian term: it comes from above (few people would actually drive their own communities to being perceived as voids, if they had the tools and political momentum to do otherwise), and I regard democracy as the opposite idea: through inclusion and direct participation, the void starts acquiring a face and a voice.

TRANSITION – The reality of Rosengård. It is a place of transition between “abroad” and Sweden, and between the culture of the newcomers and the culture of those who grew up or were born in Sweden. The problem is that, even though many come to Rosengård, very few stay: most people will leave as soon as their economy or life situation allows for it. This situation has a direct effect on the perception of “home”: if you know you’re somewhere for just a few months or years, you won’t become as attached to this place as you would if, say, it really was YOUR home. Therefore, developping a sense of ownership and adding aggregate value become relevant ideas for a new configuration of public space in Rosengård: to give people a reason to actually want to live here.

IDENTITY, “one-ness” – Now, as an architect and as a person I don’t believe in identity as a finished product. Identities change over time affected by countless events and it may very well be the case that after enough time and transformations, a former identity might have changed beyond recognition. However, in the word “identity” there is an implication of difference from others: my identity is what makes ME be ME and not someone or something else, even if I am constantly reconstructing and redefining who I am. Therefore, public space in Rosengård should act as place for self-definition, but not be the defining element in itself. An architectural programme for the public space can foresee the occurrence of different events over time, and the pursue of an identity is full of these test-and-error situations.